The BCA has lodged a submission with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet regarding the Indigenous Jobs and Training Review.

The BCA suggests reforms to both the Indigenous Employment Program and the Job Services Australia model to better enable them to respond to employer-led Indigenous employment demand and encourage greater connectivity between employment services and employers.  

Longer term and more flexible funding for pre-employment training, workplace cultural awareness and accessible long-term mentoring is required. These factors have been consistently identified as the core elements of successful Indigenous employment approaches, yet they can be disproportionately costly for businesses to shoulder without support from governments.

Other proposed approaches to boost Indigenous employment include place and industry specific strategies to link up and support demand and supply as well as strengthening the application of the Indigenous Opportunities Policy to maximise its impact on employment and the growth of the Indigenous business sector.

In addition to lodging a submission, the BCA hosted a series of one-on-one sessions with BCA members and members of the Indigenous Jobs and Training Review team (including Parliamentary Secretary Alan Tudge) in late November. In these sessions, members discussed their Indigenous employment achievements, aspirations and challenges and fed suggestions and recommendations directly into the review.